Gaming may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a VPN. Typically, a VPN is used to hide your location, keep you safe online and allow you to get around geo-restricted content. However, a VPN has many benefits for gaming including being able to reduce the risk of bandwidth throttling by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) as well as protecting yourself against distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from opponents or malicious actors. Additionally, the best Warzone VPN could also help to lower the in-game stakes and guarantee easier lobbies.
All of our best VPNs can help for those that simply want a new way to secure a win. With the game (and many others) using skilled based match-making (SBMM) to connect players to their next opponents, as you accrue more wins you could be looking at a far more challenging match — and things will only get harder the more you play. Using a Warzone VPN could allow you to better control as to who your next opponent might be, giving you more options and easier battles.
Throwing in the other perks of the best gaming VPN, keep reading as we go into detail about why a Warzone VPN is an essential piece of kit for CoD players, as well as how it works, and how to secure those easy lobbies.
The three best Warzone VPN services:
Recent updates
Since the latest VPN test results came through, NordVPN has taken the top spot over ExpressVPN for the first time in six years. Due to this, we have reshuffled our rankings accordingly.
Why you should use a VPN when playing Warzone
Bored with your current matchmaking? Frustrated at your losses? A Warzone VPN could be the answer to your problems. While not directly confirmed by Activision, it's assumed by most players that your CoD lobby is based on a SBMM algorithm, alongside ping and wait time. This means your matches will nearly always be against other players on a similar skill level to you. Usually, this is a great system as it keeps the competition fair and balanced, but if you're having a hard time winning, you may want to explore options for making your games a bit easier.
Of course, it does also come down to time zone and, subsequently, location; otherwise players would find themselves waiting around for a fair fight if players that fit the right criteria weren't already online. By using a VPN to spoof your device's location, you can trick Warzone's servers into thinking you're elsewhere and enter easier lobbies at quieter times.
How a Warzone VPN works:
Many VPN providers have a network of servers in the thousands, and these servers are based in a number of locations around the world. This is great news for those after a Warzone VPN, as more locations means more places to connect to Warzone's servers from.
As the game is typically busiest in the evenings, you can use a VPN to connect to a server in a country with a different time zone and play where it's the morning or early afternoon, meaning fewer players will be online. By joining a server situated in that country, and you'll likely be entered into a lobby with far fewer skilled players.
Those in the US playing in the evening are best placed joining a server in the UK, Europe, or Africa where it's early morning. It also might be an idea to find out what countries have the least number of gamers playing Warzone, as this could also throw up a smaller pool of potential opponents.
What makes the best Warzone VPN?
Above all else, when it comes to the best Warzone VPN, you want one that hosts a number of servers across the globe for you to hop to and from, as well as reliable connection speeds. Of course, you'll also want one that proves secure, too. Our top recommendation is NordVPN, which also sits at the top of the list when it comes to a VPN for gaming.
Not only does it offer a router app if you're looking to set up a router VPN for console gamers (a necessity if you're playing Warzone on PS4 or Xbox One), but it also means there should be little to no increase in ping. While not proving to be the fastest VPN provider in our latest rounds of testing, it did see above-average results of 750 Mbps. NordVPN and Surfshark both hurtled ahead with speeds of over 950 Mbps.
Good security also means you'll be less vulnerable to DDoS attacks from bad losers, or bandwidth throttling from your ISP. This is where your provider can reduce bandwidth and cause lag when detecting high-download tasks like streaming and gaming—something you certainly don't want to experience when opening fire on some noobs.
Can you get banned for using a VPN in Warzone?
While the use of a VPN to play Warzone in this way could be deemed cheating by some, it shouldn't get you in hot water. In fact, according to the CoD Warzone Security and Enforcement Policy, it's pretty commonplace to use a VPN to reduce lag. While this might not strictly be the reason you might be hopping onto a VPN, we'd hazard a guess it would be hard to determine either way.
Still, as ever, it's important to err on the side of caution and assess the risk, especially if you're a high-profile gamer.
Does a Warzone VPN improve ping?
It's unlikely a VPN will decrease your ping, as a VPN service tends to run slower than your own network's peak speed. That said, there are ways a VPN can improve your connection.
Firstly, ensure you're getting the strongest VPN connection possible, by choosing a server based nearby. It's also worth taking a moment to run trial and error to see which server offers the best speeds. In turn, this can offer a more reliable performance throughout your gaming session, ensuring you maintain consistent speeds.
The alternative is relying on your own network, which may at times be faster, but could quickly deplete in the event you're throttled.
